Number Your Days

Psalm 90:12

Number Your Days

So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Today, take a moment to examine your life. Where are you going? What are your goals? What is the end result of the life you are trying to build for yourself? Are you happy? Have you ever been happy? Do you think the next thing you are seeking is going to make you happy? These are very good questions to ask ourselves and in doing so we will begin to draw conclusions about things that we have rarely stopped to think seriously about and learn from.

The word in this Psalm is asking these questions. He says, teach me to know and understand that my time might be very short and how am I spending it? It also may be long, and how am I spending it? It may be long?? Why would that help me think? I thought that life being short is the scary part because I might die before getting my life right with God or without accomplishing something good for Him? Yes, your life might be long. Why is this scary? It is scary because it means that every decision you make will have long consequences for you. So when you wake up after a party where in the moment you chose to do a reckless thing, you find that you can’t shake the consequences. Or if you had an abortion your life goes on and now you find out everything they don’t tell you at the clinic. Regret, guilt, the feeling of having actually committed murder intentionally. Did you know that most of the people in jail will never have the regret that you do or the intense guilt because their crimes were relatively harmless compared to yours. Most of them have actually never killed a person before and if they did, they usually have a motive against someone for something they did to them, but you have chosen to kill someone who never harmed you. These things will stay with you forever. So if you live for the moment as though life is short, you will find that life is long and every day that goes by feels like a lifetime.

We now realize that if we had known that life would go on we would never have done the things we did. We would have considered our days that we might have chosen more wisely. This despair and guilt is why so many people want to end their lives early. The consequences of their actions won’t leave them. They just go on and on. There are so many things we can do that have horrible consequences. These are just a couple, but I’m sure you can think of more. They make life miserable don’t they? 

Here is the miracle. Jesus has offered us a way out. He has offered to take the pain, guilt, despair and suicidal thoughts from us and to replace them with peace,  joy and rest for our weary heart. This is the miracle of salvation. He takes our destroyed lives and begins to rebuild them. He takes away the spirit of despair we are under and gives us a new joy and a reason to wake up in the morning. Those who have received Christ know exactly what I’m talking about. You wake up in the morning and your just actually glad to be alive! Nothing outward has changed. Your life is still full of the consequences of your actions but suddenly the weight is gone and your glad to get up! Maybe for the first time that you can ever remember! This is just the beginning! Jesus will give you a desire to live, and a joy to begin living for Him. He will reshape your life and turn the worst things you have done into something beautiful. He will take the humility of your heart as you give it to Him and grow something new and beautiful out of it. He will save you from your despair and give you a joy that you never knew was possible.

So for all of you who have never experienced this, take some time to consider and remember your days. Jesus can make you brand new today if you humbly come before Him right now and say, “Jesus, please take away my old life and all its horrible consequences, please forgive me and give me a new one that is full of Your joy and peace. I want this joy that I have just been reading about. Please make me a new person in Jesus.” If you take some time and do this, I guarantee your life will never be the same.

And for all who know Jesus, take some time to consider your days. Don’t waste time on things that only please the flesh. Consider how little time you have before Jesus returns and seek to do all you can for His sheep before He comes. Let us be found faithful when He come back, that He would be able to say to us, “Well done My good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master.”